"It's the first time the Universe has spoken to us through gravitational waves. Up until now, we've been deaf,” Reitze added.

The discovery was made by LIGO, a pair of L-shaped laser antennas designed to detect gravitational waves, on Sept. 14, 2015 in a collaborative project between California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"Our observation of gravitational waves accomplishes an ambitious goal set out over five decades ago to directly detect this elusive phenomenon and better understand the universe, and, fittingly, fulfills Einstein's legacy on the 100th anniversary of his general theory of relativity," Reitze said in a statement.